Tis the season to be jolly…

While out dogwalking in Lush Places this morning, I encountered a train of primary school children walking in crocodile formation to the church.

Some had silver tinsel halos and others wore bunny ears.

It’s the time for school Nativity plays across the land.

Shortly after they were shepherded into the church, the heavens opened and rain lashed down in full Storm Bram mode, with gusts of wind careering through like the breath of Satan.

I do hope they got back to their classrooms safe and dry.

The weather is to be expected this time of year. But it’s a bit of a rude awakening for us, to be honest, after spending almost three weeks in South East Asia on a tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

It’s a trip we promised ourselves for ‘significant’ birthdays, but the pandemic lockdowns got in the way.

It’s been a terrific experience, with beautiful food and landscapes and such poignant tales of suffering which are indescribably sad.

The highlight for me was the gentle kindness of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people. Thank you for your warm hospitality.

I’ve been posting reels on my margerymaddie Instagram account, but below are a few pictures from our trip to give you a flavour.

Now it’s back to normality – we have to put the Christmas tree up again outside the house because it’s blown down in the storm.

And while we’re at it, we’ll change the lights to warm white rather than flashing, coloured lights, because we’ve spoilt the look of the village square and there have been complaints.

Which is fair enough. But just wait until we get our blow-up Santa…

Love, Maddie xxx

It’s a book!

Thrilled to announce the safe arrival of a book.

It’s Born & Bred: Stories of Then and Now in Broadwindsor, Dorset.

Featuring lots of old photos and interviews with locals, the 120-page book was produced by me for Windrose Rural Media Trust, for which I act as voluntary co-ordinator.

It’s available from the community pub and community shop, and also directly from me. I have to send a copy to the British Library, now that the international standard book number (ISBN) has been registered, so, in theory, people should be able to order it from book shops.

It’s been a long gestation and a difficult birth – my designer was beset with software problems and then a car crashed into a tree, causing him and thousands of others in the area to lose their internet for several days.

But it’s here, and the feedback has been lovely. It’s been a privilege to hear local people’s stories of their childhood and how the village used to be.

I even had a double page spread in the local paper.

All sale proceeds go to the pub, the shop and to Windrose, a registered charity.

The project is supported by grants from Dorset Council’s Community and Culture Fund, the South West Procurement Alliance/LHC Community Benefit Fund, Magna Housing Association’s Community Improvement Fund, and the British Association for Local History’s Small Grants Programme.

We have ways of making you talk…

Back in 2011, Lush Places was landed with the unwelcome addition of a mass of bright white street lights.

They appeared all around the village square and marched like War of the World aliens along the road to the primary school, and all without any public consultation.

Subsequent protests to the county council fell on deaf ears.

Our erstwhile leaders insisted the lights were necessary to illuminate new traffic calming measures, on which the village had been consulted although the new lights were never once mentioned, nor did they appear on the plans shown to residents.

Understandably, there was uproar and outrage.

I blogged about it at the time. Here’s the link.

We were all set to join forces, stop the traffic and have a game of football under the new floodlights, just to prove the point that they were brighter than anything the village had ever seen. And the hideous poles were more in keeping with an edge-of-town industrial estate than a pretty rural village where King Charles II once holed up for the night back in 1651 when he was on the run.

Despite numerous meetings, letters and the support of our local MP, we were given the brush off.

We put in blackout curtains to help us sleep at night and a shield was installed on the lamp outside my neighbour’s house to try to stop the glare piercing through their window.

Disquiet built up. I made a formal complaint to the council about how the lights had just appeared without anyone knowing it was going to happen.

The complaint was partially upheld, particularly the bit about lack of consultation. At the time, the council pledged to learn from its mistake and make sure the public was consulted on lighting schemes in the future.

New lighting schemes are being installed across the county as part of a private finance initiative and, according to Dorset Council’s website, the contractor is responsible for the ‘customer interface’. Whether this means public consultation, I have no idea. My proficiency in local authority jargon has lapsed in recent years.

But, anyway, it would not be unreasonable to assume that local residents likely to be affected by new street lights would at least be notified before installation, either by the council or the contractor.

It seems not.

These have recently appeared up the road.

It’s difficult to photograph accurately, but the three lights really are that bright, shining into windows at night like static searchlights.

The good thing is that the new lanterns are energy saving, and they were fixed to existing poles, although in some places in Dorset, streetlights are turned off at night to reduce costs.

The official line is that the lanterns do ‘appear different as they are now a white light which is remarked upon by some’.

Remarked upon? Screamed about, more like.

But there is no mention of public consultation. However, there are ways of making people talk…

Raise a song of harvest home

Tractors are hauling high-sided trailers full of maize through the village.

It’s the day after the annual village Harvest Supper which this year was held, appropriately on National Farmers’ Day. Until last night, I had never heard of it.

It was a question in a quiz about Dorset and countryside miscellany. Our table did rather well, despite not knowing the height of the Cerne Giant (180 feet), Britain’s tallest and best-known chalk hill figure, or the number of one of the loveliest routes in the country – the coast road between Bridport and Beaminster. (It’s the B3157.)

We did know the name of three assorted cauliflowers (an educated guess), where Dorset’s Chesil Beach starts and ends (West Bay to Portland) and where Frankenstein author Mary Shelley is buried (Bournemouth).

But nobody in the whole room knew the date of National Farmers’ Day, even the handful of working and retired farmers who turned out for the feast in our village hall.

Our table guessed Lady Day (25 March), when, traditionally, farm tenancies are renewed and rents are due, but we also thought it could have been Michaelmas (29 September), as that quarter day falls in the harvest season.

It was neither.

It was 12 October. Apparently.

When I got home I looked it up, suspecting National Farmers’ Day might be an American invention.

According to Wikipedia, it’s marked on different dates around the world. The article states goes on to say that it’s held on 12 October in the USA. But there was no mention of the UK at all.

That’s probably because every day is farmers’ day – they’re always working.

Anyway, it’s too late for a steward’s inquiry and we did have a wonderful evening, with fabulous food, served with smiles and grace by Mrs Bancroft and her hardworking team.

I was asked by The Parson’s Daughter to sing with her the opening note to Come Ye Thankful People, Come because our tuneful vicar was away.

We won a bottle of wine on the raffle, were entertained by our village Gallery Quire, resplendent in Thomas Hardy-era costumes, and bought a bag of squashes and Scotch Bonnet chilli peppers, which look beautiful and quirky but will no doubt blow our socks off.

Hats off to all those involved in putting on the Harvest Supper. Long may this lovely tradition continue.

The Geate A-Vallen To

With Covid or whatever it was having only just flown the nest (it took nearly a whole month), we’re now back in Dorset to lovely weather (I jest) and a warm welcome (I do not jest).

This morning, I walked out along the lane with Ruby and Edgar to a gate which reminded me of a poem by the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes (1801-1886).

The Geate A-Vallen To was apparently Barnes’ last dialect poem and it’s one I love because it was a favourite of older family members who, although from rural south Somerset, could do a pretty good rendition of the Dorset dialect.

There’s a YouTube link at the end of this blog to a chap reading the poem. His voice is far too posh but you get the gist. But I recommend trying it out yourself first by reading it aloud:

The Geate A-Vallen To

In the zunsheen of our zummers
Wi’ the hay time now a-come,
How busy wer we out a-vield
Wi’ vew a-left at hwome,
When waggons rumbled out ov yard
Red wheeled, wi’ body blue,
And back behind ‘em loudly slamm’d
The geate a’vallen to.

Drough daysheen ov how many years
The geate ha’ now a-swung
Behind the veet o’ vull-grown men
And vootsteps of the young.
Drough years o’ days it swung to us
Behind each little shoe,
As we tripped lightly on avore
The geate a-vallen to.

In evenen time o’ starry night
How mother zot at hwome,
And kept her bleazen vier bright
Till father should ha’ come,
An’ how she quicken’d up and smiled
An’ stirred her vier anew,
To hear the trampen ho’ses’ steps
An’ geate a-vallen to.

There’s moon-sheen now in nights o’ fall
When leaves be brown vrom green,
When, to the slammen o’ the geate,
Our Jenny’s ears be keen,
When the wold dog do wag his tail,
An’ Jean could tell to who,
As he do come in drough the geate,
The geate a-vallen to.

An’ oft do come a saddened hour
When there must goo away
One well-beloved to our heart’s core,
Vor long, perhaps vor aye:
An’ oh! it is a touchen thing
The loven heart must rue,
To hear behind his last farewell
The geate a-vallen to.